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Kyoto, Sakyo Ward, Shihou Suishoen.
“Madam, Chouko has returned to her room to rest.”
Shouko slid open the shoji door of the tea room and stepped lightly onto the tatami floor, looking toward the elderly woman reclining against the low tea table on a cushion.
Opposite the shoji was an opening that led into the inner courtyard. The doors there stood wide open, allowing the moonlight to pour in unobstructed. Beneath that pale glow, the old lady’s white hair gleamed like silver, striking against the dimness of the room.
Her eyes were half-closed as if dozing, yet she spoke without even looking up.
“I’ve told you before, Shouko. There’s no need to be so stiff and formal with me in private. Just call me Grandma.”
“You didn’t say that to Chouko last time…”
Shouko gave a wry smile. After closing the shoji door, she walked over and sat upright on the cushion across the table.
“With Chouko’s personality? Even strict discipline barely keeps her from running wild like a stray cat. If we loosened the reins, she’d have vanished who knows where long ago.”
The old lady complained as her fingertips tapped against the rosewood table—thud, thud, thud—crisp and rhythmic.
“So? She’s that quiet after coming back? Didn’t throw a fit?”
“She went back to her room right after dinner.”
“Didn’t cause trouble on the way?”
“As obedient as your little Kinako.”
“And when you went to fetch her?”
“About the same reaction as when you try to bathe Kinako.”
The old woman fell silent for a moment before letting out a shallow sigh.
“Well. At least she’s grown a little.”
Flowers raised in a greenhouse cannot withstand wind and rain.
Yet, she thought, the price Chouko paid for that growth was far too heavy—
Nearly being drugged and assaulted, and even filmed. That was no joking “lesson.”
The main family had already begun to show signs of decline. If such a scandal were to surface, those ambitious wolves among the branch families would surely seize the chance to stage some “usurpation.”
Even if internal strife dragged the Shihou family into ruin and opened the door to outside enemies…
But then again, if those fools possessed that level of foresight, they wouldn’t spend their days coveting the main house’s position instead of expanding their own businesses.
“Still… if this is the kind of danger required for Chouko to grow, we might as well lock her up and raise her alongside Kinako.”
Though Shihou Kiyoko had once placed the hope of reviving the main house upon her great-granddaughter, she could not accept that hope demanding excessive sacrifice.
Besides, she saw it clearly now. With Chouko’s mischievous and unruly temperament, merely maintaining the status quo would already be an achievement.
In her mind, recruiting a suitable boy early and having Chouko bear several talented children would be far more reliable than betting everything on this gifted yet inconsistent great-granddaughter.
Yet…
Marrying her off outward would be simple enough. But to find someone who not only possessed real, practical talent and a promising future, but also posed minimal risk—
She had found no such candidate.
Outstanding looks. Genuine ability. Close in age to Chouko. Ambition tempered by restraint rather than greed.
And above all, Chouko’s own will.
If the girl resisted, with her lifelong penchant for tormenting people through pranks, she might chase her husband away within days.
“When I get up tomorrow morning, I’ll drag Chouko into my room and give her a proper scolding.”
Just thinking about the effort it would require made Kiyoko’s head ache.
“Um… G-Grandma…”
Shouko hesitated before speaking.
“I think… what changed Chouko might not have been just the near assault. Or rather—not only that.”
The old woman opened her eyes slightly wider and glanced at her unusually hesitant granddaughter.
To her, Shouko—who stayed home to care for her—felt far closer than the grandson who was rarely ever seen.
Thinking of him made her sigh inwardly. After her son, daughter-in-law, and even her husband passed away one after another, she had been far too strict with her only grandson, all for the sake of the main house.
“So what? Could it possibly be… that boy Chouko calls ‘Onii’? That Sato?”
She gave a derisive snort before Shouko could answer.
“That brat can’t even improve himself, let alone change Chouko.”
“Not Sato-kun.”
That caught the old woman’s interest. She lifted her small teacup and slurped a mouthful of cooled tea before asking,
“The one who saved Chouko… what was his name again? Hoshikawa Hanoki?”
“It’s Hoshikawa Harutaki…”
The mistaken name almost made Shouko laugh—but she couldn’t.
The truth was harsh. The head of the Shihou main house, its final pillar, was no longer as sharp as she once was.
At over ninety years old, who knew when she might pass? When that day came, the main house might collapse entirely—or be swallowed by the branch families.
Shouko glanced toward the open courtyard, where cold moonlight spilled across the floor.
In this house on the verge of being swallowed by darkness, her daughter Chouko was like the distant moon in the night sky—casting down faint light and fragile hope.
“So you met the boy today,” Kiyoko observed. “You seem to think well of him?”
“He’s… not bad.”
Shouko nodded slowly and recounted, in brief, her encounter with Harutaki at Tokyo Station that morning.
“…That’s what happened. And then—”
“Pfft! ‘Chouko-chan’s papa’? Hah! So I gained a grandson while lying at home.”
Kiyoko burst into laughter, coughing as she did. She waved Shouko back to her seat when she tried to rise.
“And what was ‘Chouko-chan’s mama’ thinking at the time?”
“Grandma!”
Shouko shot her a reproachful look before speaking earnestly.
“I think he’s a good boy…”
She recalled his actions, and the words Chouko had said to him when they parted. Her instincts told her he might be the most suitable choice.
They had no luxury to be picky. And based on her observation, few peers could match him overall.
“A bit of cleverness, that’s all.”
The old woman’s earlier laughter had carried no fondness.
“If that brat had tried to stop Chouko on the spot, I might’ve thought more highly of him.”
“That’s unreasonable…”
Shouko sighed.
“He was simply rational. He knew tantrums wouldn’t work.”
And besides, judging from the “New York Perfect Cheese” gift he had prepared in advance, he had already anticipated failure.
“Heh. So you’re saying he’s calm, calculating, worldly beyond his years? Wouldn’t that be like sending a wolf into the sheepfold?”
“But…”
She had thought the same—until she remembered the sincerity in his eyes.
“Well then,” Kiyoko said lightly, “let’s make another wager.”
“Why are you always betting…”
True, her grandmother had rarely lost.
Previously, when Chouko ran away, they had bet:
If Chouko and Sato progressed affectionately, Shouko would win.
If neither improved, Kiyoko would win.
The stake? The right to decide Chouko’s marriage.
In truth, it was symbolic. Neither could override the other completely.
“This time, we’ll wager whether that boy dares to come find Chouko.”
Kiyoko took another sip of tea.
“If he sets foot in Suishoen within a week…”
“You could just close the gates or have security stop him. That’s hardly fair. He’s only a high schooler Chouko’s age…”
“Tch.”
The old woman smiled faintly.
“What does that have to do with me? Anyone mature enough to weigh risks wouldn’t run from Tokyo to Kyoto and offend the Shihou family.”
“If I win, will you give Chouko another chance?”
Shouko thought of slipping her daughter’s phone back to her later to warn Harutaki.
“You may. But no cheating. If you contact him, you lose.”
Kiyoko saw right through her.
“…Then what do you want if you win?”
“Doesn’t matter. If I lose, I still gain something. If I win, I lose nothing.”
…
Liar.
Harutaki is a…
“…liar.”
Darkness and silence blended like flour and water, fermenting thickly within her Japanese-Western style bedroom.
Chouko lay upon the large bed she hadn’t slept in for two years, her pale, lotus-stem-like arm pressed over her eyes, trying to push back the tears threatening to spill.
Yes, she had said no.
Yes, she had asked him not to stop her.
But—
She wanted to be herself.
Not the “Shihou Chouko” others expected.
Harutaki is a liar!
He’d tucked all his hair behind his left ear like they promised—so how could he still smile and say goodbye?
There was no way he hadn’t noticed.
She trusted him so much. Relied on him so much.
Unless—
A terrifying thought surfaced.
Had he forgotten their promise entirely?
Just like that idiot “Onii,” telling her to wait.
Why was she always the one who had to wait?
Her tears overflowed like a broken faucet. Even squeezing her eyes shut couldn’t stop the pillow beneath her head from darkening with damp stains.
She wiped her tears fiercely, turned over, and pulled the blanket tighter around herself, as if only that could grant her warmth on this spring night nearing early summer.
Staring at the pale moonlight filtering through the shoji, she felt a deep hatred for the design of this estate.
Chouko hated “yūgen.” Hated the gloom.
Her bedroom wasn’t empty or barren.
What made it so desolate were the lattice shadows on the floor. The aged, muted ornaments. The dark memories of childhood. Her stubbornness. Her loneliness.
“Harutaki…”
She murmured his name softly, curling into the blanket, hugging it tight between her legs as she recalled his face—breathing deeply to ease the ache twisting in her chest.
…